


Not Insurmountable

by ethereal_ashwinder



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abusive Family, Fluff, High School Age AU, Light Angst, M/M, Mountains, Outdoorsy, Winchester family feels, almosthappy!Dean, artist!Cas, live!Mary, product of procrastination
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-24
Updated: 2014-11-24
Packaged: 2018-02-26 20:50:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2665925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ethereal_ashwinder/pseuds/ethereal_ashwinder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean tries not to let his best friend down. And if that means that he has to (literally) climb a mountain to keep him happy, then Dean will do the best he can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Insurmountable

The sun slipped over the two lane asphalt like it was water, thin and weakly tinted gold. Dean sighed and then coughed, pulling the cold, late September air into his lungs, feeling himself reach out to turn up the heat for the first time after their long summer. It wouldn't stay this way for long, he knew- as the day went on the land would get warmer, and by midday he would be shedding layers as they climbed- but it couldn't hurt for the moment. And hey, he got out of bed before dawn for this. If he wasn't allowed to turn the radio on, he had to have some form of comfort.

It was a two hour drive to the mountains. Two hours of straight highway, more or less; two hours of watching the suburbs crawl past, the out-of-town shopping malls…two hours of satellite towns, stubby, shady-looking motels,  farms and fields, grain silos and rural gas stations. After that, the foothills would pull themselves up out of nowhere, and the land would slowly crease, exaggerate, like a wave about to crash to the shore- and then the mountains. They wouldn't climb one of those- but they would get close enough, high enough. Walk a few miles, or ten. Navigate themselves back home before the sun fell too far and deepened the shadows of the trees to the point of no return.

Dean tried not to think too much about that, about disappearing so abruptly, and it was easy. _Block it out, don’t acknowledge it-_  he was a pro at that. Sure, it would probably fester in his mind all day, and as the hike wore on he was sure that he’d grow steadily more agitated until they were well on their way home- but at least he wouldn't be, you know,  _actively_ dwelling on it. Just passively. It was easier.

Besides, he trusted Cas. They wouldn't get lost if he was there.

Dean remembered him on the Friday a few weeks ago, when he had laid out the map on the cafeteria table. A rough, low voice, too old for him: "Our mission is to reach this point, here, by three pm." The collar of his trenchcoat flopping about his neck, half popped and half laid flat, his hair in a similar state. Cheeks red, fingers still covered in chalk and charcoal, fingerprinting the map at the careful folds. He had run from the Art Department, top floor and a building over, just to catch the end of Dean’s lunch hour so he’d be prepared. Pointing at the map, jabbing at it, twisting it round in flurries of movement. "We’re going to march up this gully and wind round." The details, the details. Cas loved the details. Dean had moved his sandwiches well to the side and stepped back with his arms up in surrender.

"I’m not the crazy rock enthusiast," he had said. "Lead the way, and I’ll follow."

He twitched his fingers around the wheel. The heat wasn't coming on fast enough- and he was just considering reaching into the back to get the gloves he had packed just in case when Cas let out a little snore from the passenger side. His face was pressed into the jacket he had bundled up and pushed against the window for a pillow.

Dean smiled- s _uch a morning person_ \- and pulled a blanket from the back instead, the one he always kept there for when Sammy or his mom got cold on long drives. He maneuvered it around his friend gently, one-handed. The Impala didn't waver once from its straight-line path- Dean had had practice, after all.

Cas just snored again and pulled the blanket a little closer. Lips closed, a little crease developing between his eyebrows.

 _Eyes on the road, Dean_.

His face grew warm and he coughed again, hoping he wasn't coming down with something.

He turned the heat down.

 

* * *

 

 "Wha-"

Cas yawned as though he was about to swallow the entire car.

"What time is it?" he completed, grumpily, rolling his shoulders and his neck to iron out the strain of his sleeping position, and blinking at the risen sun.

"Mornin', starshine," Dean said, too brightly for his friend’s liking, tapping a rhythm on the wheel. "It’s uh, seven fifteen. We got an hour or so, and you know what that means…"

"Dean. No."

"…plenty of time for Zeppelin ll!"

"Dean, I've just woken up." Cas groaned, and Dean would've almost felt bad about the obvious pain in his voice if he hadn't been snoring quite so loudly while he was out of it.

"Hey, yeah, and I’m carting your lazy ass halfway across the state just so you can sit on top of a tree and play zen. You know the rules, Cas-"

Cas quoted with an expression and tone of bitter distaste. "'Driver picks the music-'"

"-and shotgun shuts his cakehole! You got it, I've taught you well, yadda yadda. Now throw me the damn cassette, sleeping beauty."

Grudgingly, and murmuring mutinously about pagan barbarism, Cas rummaged through the glove compartment and pressed the tape into the player himself, a lot more gently than his outward aggression would imply. Dean wanted to smile about that, but stopped himself until the first pounding strains of _Whole Lotta Love_ seeped into his bloodstream like the whisky Bobby gave him at the garage in winter to reclaim the use of his fingers from the snow. He let himself grin and closed his eyes for a half-second in bliss.

When he opened them again he felt Cas looking over at him and caught his eye. He was smiling too, his mouth pulled slightly up at both corners, his eyes fond and glowing warmly- a major feat considering he was still in the first-hour  post-waking-up ‘danger zone,’ and Dean had interrupted his morning peace. As her tires ran smoothly over the tarmac, the hum of the Impala’s engine wrapped itself around them both, the music threading through it in turn. The plaid blanket still lay over Cas’s legs, and outside the land around them had turned to undulating fields and swaying grasses, the foothills just visible in the distant east.

Dean thought he had rarely been happier. He thought of dinner the night before, when Sammy had reported on his date to the movies with his latest crush, a pretty blonde girl Dean had met only once. His mother had glowed as she looked at him, far brighter than she had looked in the several months that followed John’s death. And this morning Dean had Cas, his best friend, beside him. Cas who had messy hair and a rock hammer attached to his rucksack. Cas who was currently swigging coffee from a flask that Mary herself had poured for him that morning, pushing back his hair with her hand from his groggy, half-awake face and smiling softly to herself. Not that Dean had been watching particularly closely.

"Is it good?" Dean asked, watching him swallow.

"It’s good, yes. Your mother makes good coffee."

 _Eyes on the road, Dean_.

"So…" he coughed, half-embarrassed. "What’s the plan then?"

"We get to the cabin at eight-ish, follow the creek up until it splits into two, which should take us approximately an hour. We follow to the left, and wind up around the side of the ridge itself with a view into the valley, stop to eat and recuperate. Then we continue to climb the ridge until we reach the pinnacle." Cas’s eyes shone. He licked his lips when he paused, and then shrugged.   "We could possibly take another route down, but that requires more careful planning depending on how much time we have."

"Sounds awesome. No bears?"

"Hopefully. It’s a rarely-used route, so there’s a chance."

"Dude, if we run into Yogi and Boo-Boo, _you’re_ the one giving up your pic-a-nic basket, we clear?"

Dean couldn't see Cas, but he knew the look he had in the silence before he spoke. The tilted head, the quizzical brow, the vague aura of offense. "I don’t understand."

Dean sighed. "Jellystone Park?"

"I think you mean Yellowstone."

"Not quite smarter-than-the-average-bear, are you, Cas? It’s a reference. To a cartoon."

"Dean-" Cas huffed, annoyed.

"Yeah, yeah, religious dad, no tv before the age of fifteen, I remember. I’ll just add Yogi to my list with Top Cat and Hong Kong Phooey…"

"Dean."

"…and why don’t we just throw in He-Man and the Ninja Turtles, too…"

"Dean, stop. I promised I’d give your- _interests_ a try, but remember you promised you’d give mine a chance also. And that’s why you’re here. _If_ you recall."

Dean grinned at the snarkiness. "I remember, Cas."

Sick of explaining to Cas every pop culture reference he made to the new girl in class, Charlie Bradbury, Dean had spent two English classes noting down every movie and tv show that Cas had to see in order to be ‘saved’- all the albums he had to listen to, the games he had to play. It was a lot of commitment on Dean’s part to compose that list, and it would be even more effort to see it through. That said, he was determined Cas would not go to college innocent of the basics of human interaction, as Dean saw it -the guy hadn’t even seen _Indiana Jones_.

Of course, when he presented Cas with the list, Cas got pissy and composed one of his own. Books Dean had to read, things he had to learn, and on top of his schoolwork: things about art and composition. Archaeology. Anthropology. Things about rocks and mountains, plate tectonics; things about the night sky and the deep sea, deserts and tundra, rainforests, bogland….and beekeeping, but Dean tended to classify that in its own category of insane weirdness. Also, he had to learn all the words to Don McLean’s _Vincent_ , which was torture of another degree.

Anyway, they had agreed and promised- one in exchange for another, an equality of sorts.

That was what their friendship was, right? Equality.

"Don’t worry," said Dean. "I’ll let you teach me whatever you want."

He did not see the blush creep up Castiel’s neck.

 

* * *

 

 They arrived at the cabin at seven-forty, which Cas pointedly attributed to Dean crossing the speed limit for over half of the journey, and Dean attributed to the lack of police presence on the county highway. Meandering back routes skirted the feet of some of the more massive hills, pulling them further into the mountain range until Cas told Dean to take a turn-off into a gravel-paved track that opened into a wide loop, well hidden by tall trees with squint tops. An abandoned wooden cabin stood at the far end, looking sunken and saddened. Gloom poured from its windows like black ink. Boards had been pulled from the side, and broken glass was scattered in the weeds that ran most of the way around its rim. Dean thought it looked like a set from a horror movie, something like _the Descent_. He didn't want to mention it to Cas, but he was very very grateful they weren't going caving.

"Hey, will my baby be safe here?" he asked nervously.

"Dean, bears will not attack your car," Cas said shortly.

He was not assured. "Humans? Humans are the worst."

"I told you, it’s abandoned. Nobody uses this trail much anymore, I wouldn't worry about it. We’ll be back well before dark anyway."

Dean parked the Impala far enough from the cabin to give him some peace of mind, but he still didn't say anything. Cas didn't move from his seat, still looking at him, still with the plaid blanket over his legs and bunched up in one of his hands.

"Dean, honestly," he said, more gently, beginning to fold the blanket. "Your baby will be fine."

Dean did not feel fine, though. He felt the mountain air pressing heavy on the windscreen. They were just too tall. These jutting, angular fragments of rock forcing themselves into the sky- he found himself wondering what exactly they had displaced when they were thrust here, and he did not mean that geologically. Something was not right. He wondered what sort of person could live like this, hemmed in by shards, and by a sky weighted like a grey wool tent stretched from peak to peak. Burdened from above.

Dean liked the open, he liked the road, he liked blue. He liked to have an idea of where he was going, the ability to see around every corner. His happiness from earlier had been swallowed when the range had swallowed them, and his eyes fell back to that cabin once more. Back to its emptiness, its abandonment. The sense of _loss_ \- that was what it was. The sense of sheer and keening loss was a mist that clung to it, that poured from it, unsettling Dean who had so recently felt that way himself, and felt it constantly. Had only just felt it slip away to something more subtle.

Cas was talking but Dean, distracted, was staring at a grip of moss oozing from one of the broken eaves.

"Cas, what happened here?" he felt himself say, hating the way his voice stumbled uncertainly over the syllables.

Cas had folded the blanket and tucked it neatly into the seat behind him, and now had the passenger door half open, lacing up his hiking boots with one foot on the gravel outside. He looked over his shoulder- blue eyes bright. "Nothing happened, Dean. Nothing that I know of. Now you heard me, come on."

His shoulders were unusually loose and easy, Dean noticed, and he was stretching out his legs before he risked standing. He was so rarely happy, always strained as though he was fraught with tension. This was unsurprising, considering his uptight father in the parsonage and his smug, self-righteous brothers who emotionally destroyed him day-in-day out. Dean wanted to punch them all, and he probably would have by now if his mother hadn't raised him better, and if Cas wasn't always preaching about forgiveness.

Nevertheless, Dean felt a rush of guilt for focusing on himself at a time that was supposed to be about Cas. Cas had planned this trip meticulously. He had got as close to excited about it as Cas could be excited about anything, and had talked about it for weeks, had read entire _books_ in preparation. Above all of that, too, he had been so eager to include Dean in one of the things that he most loved.

Dean had made a promise, and he would be damned if he didn't keep it.

He pulled himself out of the Impala and went round to the back, tapping his baby on her roof as he did so to apologize for leaving. Opening the trunk, he pulled out both of their well-packed rucksacks, and turned to Cas, who was standing up now and looking sunny without quite managing a smile.

Dean grinned for him. "Let’s get this show on the road."

 

* * *

 

 The creek was dry without the snowmelt, the gully-which was more of a gorge- steep and towering, smooth and pale. Cas, fascinated by the way the rock walls rose and fell and gathered in ribbony folds, stopped every now and again to run a hand along them, peering closely at the details. Or else he would pick up a large rock from one of the boulders they stumbled over to better look at it with a magnifying hand lens he had attached to the arm of his lurid orange rucksack. Dean waited patiently every time. Listened to his explanations, his fossil classifications, half grinning at his complicated words.

"Look at these brachiopods, Dean!"

Dean would smile.

He didn't feel quite as oppressed the farther upwards they climbed despite the fact that the walls of the gorge were close and the trees seemed to pull over their heads- fact was, Dean took this more as a comfort than anything else, the sense of unraveling through the wilderness, far away from humans and the things they would do out of greed; far from any emotions, acute or otherwise, that they were capable of feeling.

He and Cas did not talk much, except when Cas told him about the rocks around them. Explained that they were all rucked up from a seabed hundreds of millions of years ago, and massive tectonic forces had crushed them together and shoved them thousands of miles inland.

Dean found a blue-ish pebble on the ground with long, thin white strands running through it that looked vaguely like feathers, and thought of what his mother used to tell him at bedtime: _There are angels looking down on you, Dean._ It even _looked_ like a wing, he thought, turning it over in his palm as he clambered over some stripped, trapped driftwood at a gully corner.

Either a wing, or half a heart.

He pocketed it, took another bite of the apple he was miserably snacking on. He absolutely did not think about giving the stone to Cas later. He did not think about the crinkles that would form at the corner of his friend’s eyes if he did. He did not think about the quiet, earnest ‘thank you, Dean,’ he would probably receive: so grateful, as always, to have someone care for him, anyone at all, even if that someone was as pathetic as Dean. He did not think about it- and, because it was the one thing that Dean was absolutely _not_ thinking about, it was his one preoccupation as they continued, tenaciously, to climb.

They reached the edge of the gully sometime around eleven, and to celebrate Cas allowed Dean a break, smiling cheerily as Dean collapsed on the trunk of a fallen tree, groaning.

"Don’t be so dramatic, Dean."

"Three hours, Cas! Of scrambling over rocks! I bruised my shin twice."

Cas shot him an unimpressed look, taking a long draw from his water bottle. "Welcome to the great outdoors."

"Welcome to _hell."_

"I forgot, three hours for you is….almost four _Dr Sexy_ episodes, right?"

With one eyebrow raised, Cas looked like he was developing a Winchester shit-eating grin.

"You’re so annoying those times when you’re _actually_ happy, you know that, Cas?" said Dean, unthinkingly.

 He hadn't meant it, not really- he had said it with a bitterness born of aching muscles, hunger, and the knowledge that he had a far more arduous, longer climb ahead. He regretted it immediately when Cas's face fell and hardened.

"What exactly is that supposed to mean, Dean?"

Dean pulled himself up from the tree trunk, cursing himself internally for always putting his foot in his mouth and saying the wrong thing. "Well- well, you know-"

"No, I’m sorry. I do not."

Dean almost spat, "They don’t treat you right."

Cas froze, eyes narrowed. He reached up to steady himself on a tree branch, balanced as he was on a pinnacle of rock just inches from a three foot drop back into the gully. "They treat me fine, Dean. We've discussed this."

Dean wanted to protest, now that the subject had been raised when they both so often avoided it- why Dean never got an invite to Cas's for dinner, why he’d never even been to his house; the mysterious cuts, the bruises he would attempt to hide with long sleeves and baggy clothing. He was never quite successful, because Dean noticed things- he noticed _Cas_ \- and it was in his nature to worry. He never once had a truthful explanation for any of it. All Dean knew was that there were certain days when Cas's energy would plummet as though he had been leached- he was pale and drawn, the premature bags under his eyes more pronounced as though he wasn't sleeping. And Cas loved his sleep.

The thought of him that morning, safe in the Impala, Dean’s jacket for his pillow, plaid blanket pulled up to his chin. Long eyelashes that curved in towards his nose. It made Dean’s heart break to think that he wasn't like that all the time. Safe in the Impala. Safe with him, Dean.

Cas had turned and disappeared into the trees. He did not call back.

 

* * *

 

 After a while of charging through the undergrowth, wildly searching for the one person with a map in the goddamn wilderness, Dean found him on a ledge at the valley side of the ridge, cross-legged on the moss and leaning against that bright orange rucksack.

Dean at this point was both angry and worried, and rather than spit it out in bitter words he gnawed, bitterly and pointedly, on a nut-filled protein bar that was only serving to make him more frustrated. All the same he threw himself down on the moss beside Cas, surprised when it bent softly under him like a feather-filled duvet. "There you are, Nemo."

If Cas understood the reference he did not acknowledge it, but stared ahead of him, where through the tree branches a view was opening up. A grey-ish, misty view, but one that nonetheless had the possibility of greatness, given a loud sun. Bony silhouettes of giant peaks were horses tossing their manes behind them- or so Cas had drawn, deftly, on his sketchpad. Great chunks of dark charcoal split the page apart where the trees were, roughly textured to imitate the bark- again, Dean was thrown by the brilliance of his friend.

Cas wasn't only clever. Cas was like Sammy- Cas was a genius.

But his charcoal was lying limp in his hand, palm open towards the sky. He squinted at his subject with his head tilted. "It _isn’t_ right."

Dean peered over his friends shoulder. "Oh, I don’t know, I think it’s awesome. It’s always awesome."

Cas turned to Dean with eyes that seemed blacker than before. "I meant my family."

"Oh," Dean said, not knowing whether to be triumphant or awkward, or very very sad.

It looked as though it was going to be awkward anyway. Cas wasn't saying anything anymore, just stared at Dean with eyes that were so focused it seemed as though he was trying to bore through his skull.

Dean cleared his throat. "Uhh…you wanna talk about it?"

Cas stared for another few seconds, then his shoulders seemed to deflate. _He_ seemed to deflate, and it seemed as though the atmosphere was pressing down on Dean again, like the sky was falling. Dean realized _he_ had been the cause- he had made things worse today with his stupidity, with his complete inability to be tactful in any given situation. Cas had been happier this morning than he had been in months, since his birthday when Mary had baked him a special cake and Sam had made him a card out of dried pasta and silver and gold paint left over from Christmas.

Dean had ruined it. Ruined him.

"Look, you don’t have to-" Dean began, but Cas cut across him.

"No, you’re right. They’re not- it’s not my father. Or Gabe." He said this pleadingly, achingly. "It’s just Luc. When I get- when I get in the way. But it’s something I can endure. I can last, I promise, until college. Don’t worry about me, Dean."

"It shouldn’t be about _lasting_ , Cas!" Dean cried, aghast and furious. "How long has this been happening? What does he do? 'Get in the way'? Cas-"

Cas scrambled up, charcoal held tight in his fist. "Dean," he said, firmly. "I've told you all that I can at the moment, and you’ll have to respect that. I appreciate that you care-"

Dean stood up too, rucksack making it difficult, almost losing his balance on the soft ground. Cas grabbed him on the arm to steady him before he could, but as soon as he was stable Dean shrugged him off. "' _Appreciate'_? That I _care_? Goddammit Cas, of course I do, we all do, what do you take us for? What do you take yourself for? You’re family, Cas!"

"I’m not-"

"Family doesn't end with blood! You being hurt is not an option."

"Dean-" Cas's eyes brimmed with tears.

Dean felt the guilt punch him.  He had done that. He had taken Cas's special trip and trampled all over it by bringing up something that could have been discussed later- but if not now, when? He asked himself, and he did not feel as justified as he would like.

"So are we going to climb this goddamn mountain or not?"

Cas stopped where he was and they looked at each other. He nodded, both breathing harder than they really had to.

 _It’s the altitude_ , Dean thought.

 

* * *

 

 It felt like a punishment.

Every step was excruciating by the time Dean and Cas were within 100 yards of the summit. Not for Cas, although Dean was almost gratified to see that he was straining now and again to scramble up the steeper dirt climbs, shouting ‘ _rocks_!’ over his shoulder so that Dean, about ten feet behind him, had time to avoid whatever had dislodged under Cas’s feet and was now coming his way. No, Castiel did this regularly- maybe not in the mountains, but in the foothills definitely. He ran every morning, he was on the track team. He was slim and fit and ate as healthily as he could when he wasn’t shooting up on caffeine to finish his deadlines on time.

Whereas Dean? He hadn’t done anything but roll under cars and back out again for the best part of a year, and his diet despite Mary’s best efforts still consisted primarily of hamburgers and pie.  The only reason he hadn’t needed to change his jean size was that he was still recovering from the times he wouldn’t eat after his father died.

Almost a year ago today, in fact. He wondered if Cas knew.

He watched the bright orange rucksack weave through the dense trees ahead, the rucksack he knew was likely ten times heavier than his own from all the stones Cas had gathered into it when they were in the gully. Even now and again amongst the trees he would pause, waiting for Dean to catch up with him, by something he found interesting.

A spiders web gathering moisture between a branch or three, glittering in the sun. That was the last one. Cas had bent down to gather a couple of juniper berries into his palm, and Dean ended up on a step of dirt below him, clutching a tree trunk a little desperately for balance as he overstepped, pushing forward. Dean heard Cas inhale sharply, just the smallest of breaths. Their bodies were tense, mere inches from one another. Dean froze, looking up at Cas with his heart thudding and his lips slightly parted.

Cas had held his gaze for a long moment- and just when Dean’s brain was running away with itself, just when he was swaying forward, Cas looked away, at his own hands and what he had gathered there. He shrugged, popped two of the berries into his mouth, rolled the other one carefully into Dean’s palm. "Chew it," he’d asked rather than said, cheeks red and half-smiling, his breath reaching Dean in a gasp carried by the tiny wind that was able to blow between the two of them.

Little, dusty blue berries, fragrant as wood sap, as the gentle breeze that ruffled the pine needles around them.

Cas turned. Bright orange disappeared once more, into the grey gloom of the forest, climbing again. The juniper was bitter and warm on Dean’s tongue, his face and neck hot from something other than exertion.

He hadn't known when it started, at what moment Cas had become a necessary and vital part of his life. He only knew that it had happened without his own realization, that slowly but surely Cas had wound his way into his nervous system, poured over into his veins.

 _Eyes on the road, Dean_.

He pushed on his thighs, willing them to work, to take him the extra few yards of height; his feet were blistered also at the back of his beat-up work boots and they itched with heat. As he had thought earlier, the sun had risen and almost swept back the last of the clouds- thus the afternoon rays were harsh through the branches, and he had shed as much clothing as he was able without going topless, which he felt like no one wanted.

Cas turned up ahead, wide bright grin evident on his face as he shouted back- "Dean, we’re here!"

"You mean…. _you’re_ there…you….sonuvabitch," hissed Dean below his breath, grunting as he forced himself higher. Cas’s _other_ ness, his superhuman ability to power through things normal humans would find arduous, was not an excuse for Dean’s own failings. Sam had raised his eyebrows when Dean had told him of his plan to hike a ridge- of course, to his baby brother, he had called it _climbing_ a _mountain_ \- and now Dean was wishing he had listened to him when he suggested taking a ski lift someplace instead.

All the same, he had made his bed. Etc. etc.

With a final last push that seemed to break through several of the nerve endings in his feet, he made the pinnacle where Castiel stood, waiting.

When the gradient leveled, he fell over again, though not for dramatic effect this time. He was soon sprawled on a flat and exposed piece of rock staring at the blue sky which spun listlessly in circles above him, twirling and spiraling father and farther away from their pinpoint on a mountain ridge.

"Dean? Dean!"

Cas was by his side in a second, pushing a water bottle to his lips. "When did you drink last?"

Most of the water was ending up everywhere but his mouth, but Dean didn’t mind, light-headedness causing him to feel like the rock was sinking under him, and that Cas’s worried face, peering closely at him, was pulling closer.

A hand dug under his back and pulled him upright, pushing the bottle into his grip. He felt his rucksack unzip, his head still spinning.

"Lunch." Cas instructed, handing him the box Mary had insisted she would pack late last night.

Dean ripped off the Tupperware lid as though immortality lay inside it, tearing through the aluminium foil like the starving man he was to get to the sandwich.

"You know," Cas said, wincing uncomfortably at the loud appreciative groans Dean made as he consumed his food, "You could’ve just said you were hungry. I would have stopped."

Dean shook his head, and through a mouthful of food he said, "This is better. Look at _that_."

He gestured to where the trees opened and the valley spilled out for miles. The wind was harsher here on the exposed crest and Cas’s hair was moving in erratic tussocks, the smell of balsam fresh and clean and soaring.

The mountains no longer seemed sinister to Dean, no longer insurmountable, and a wide smile split his face. "We’re on top of the world, Cas! And we didn’t run into Yogi Bear anywhere, so I call that a win."

"There’s still the way back," Cas reminded him,  shaking his head and beaming, his eyes seeming bluer than the brightest shard of sky visible among the drifting, clearing cloud. He turned to face Dean, crossing his legs and pulling the sketchpad and charcoal from his rucksack that lay open beside him. Without opening it he grabbed his own sandwich- also prepared by Mary- and bit into it with relish. He looked as though he were savoring every morsel he could. He finished it long after Dean was left swigging the last morsels of his first water bottle, grateful Cas had reminded him to bring another.

They sat in silence, then, a pair of old men on their front porch with every method of communication exhausted apart from the words unspoken. Dean would have liked to say something else about Cas’s family. He would have liked to tell Cas to screw them, to abandon them, to come live with Dean and Sam and their mother who adored him like another son. To tell him that everything else would sort itself out as long as they were all together.

But he knew from experience. Battling back the forces responsible for your upbringing was not easy, and often the wounds inside you were just cleaved open wider and with more conviction. They became harder to hide: and then there was the guilt.

He thought of the time before his father’s death and it felt like a betrayal.

His father’s voice _: Eyes on the road, Dean._

The expression like a knife stab, breath a puddle of liquor. _Eyes on the road, Dean, eyes on the road. Don’t look left, don’t look right, keep that military precision. Look after your mother and brother, boy. Don’t make me come home and find there’s trouble. Do what you’re supposed to do, Dean. Keep them safe._

Yet Dean’s hands still shook when he put on his jacket. He broke one of his father’s cassette tapes last week and almost punched through a wall to prevent the tears from falling.

 Above all else, Dean didn't know how it was possible to mourn a man like John Winchester so badly.

He pulled on another layer against the cold wind, having cooled down considerably since his climb. His head was back to normal thanks to the sustenance, and he didn't want to trouble it thinking of his dad. Block it off; ignore it. Best piece of advice John had ever given him.

And so he looked, instead, at Cas. He had the freedom, now, to look. To the left or the right or wherever. No one was here, now, to tell him that it was wrong.

"I’m glad you agreed to join me, Dean," Cas said, finally breaking the silence. He either did not notice or else chose to ignore the way Dean was staring at him.

"I promised," Dean said simply in reply.

Cas flicked through his sketchpad, taking a rock from one of the side pockets and examining it carefully for anything special he could draw.

On top of a mountain, Cas sketches fossils. If Dean had said it out loud, he would have rolled his eyes, because it was so typical. He drew fossils in the margins of his class notes, he had sketches in his locker, had scraps of them in his bag.

 Dean didn't understand why anyone could like them so much. So they were the skeletons of animals, he got it. Animals and insects and plants- but they weren't, y’know, _dinosaurs._ Cas never mentioned dinosaurs- Dean didn't think he’d even seen Jurassic Park, which they would have to remedy soon. Anyway, the fossils he liked weren't extinct and irreplaceable, so far as he could tell- and if you could find them here, alive on Earth right at this very second, wasn't _life_ the more interesting state?

So Dean finally asked with a bit of a sigh, "Why d’you like ‘em, Cas?"

Cas shot him a look he was fairly certain he had picked up from Hermione Granger when they had watched Harry Potter last week. "They’re small, Dean," he said pointedly, "but they’re very important."

"Yeah,  yeah, I get that, if you want to date rocks and stuff-" he began, but Cas interrupted him firmly, his passion for the subject making him straighten his back just that little bit more. The action stretched out his long sleeved blue t shirt over his chest, and Dean followed the movement, the wrinkle and curves of the fabric, with his eyes.

"They’re _hundreds of millions_ of years old, Dean. But we can _see_ them. We can _touch_ them. We know how they lived, how they acted, and they tell us about this- _all_ of this-" he said, gesturing to the mountains in front of them, carved into pointed spears; "-and a lot more. They’re relevant, Dean, they’re significant. In these tiny little creatures, there lies the smallest of details. I- I feel we ought to respect that."

"Respect what?" Dean asked.  "Survival?"

"Endurance," Cas corrected. "Tenacity. The ability to pull through… despite all the forces that act against them. Like time. Like destruction. And they’re still…"

He trailed off, staring through the crook of Dean’s arm with his eyes distant. He bit his pink lip.

"…they’re still important in the end," finished Dean. He understood how someone like Cas could find that appealing, and indeed Cas pulled up his knees into his chest and nodded.

Dean sat closer to Cas, and nudged him with his shoulder. "Cas…uh. You ok, man?"

"You mean apart from the obvious?" he drawled, half-smiling, turning his face to his. "I’m fine, Dean. The question is, are you?"

Dean froze. Cas lips were again within inches of his own, and it was too soon, so very soon- the atmosphere shifted, a coin flipped from one face to another. Cas’s eyes, wide and surprised, spoke of the same recognition.

Dean was aware, now, that they were too close- too close to get away with this position and still claim pure friendship. Particularly since neither of them were turning away. Anxiety sat like a clenched fist in Deans ribcage. If Cas turned away now then Dean would know, know that everything was just a stupid lie that it was his own fault for believing. Of course Cas wasn't interested- Cas was made for better things, was made to be among the brightest, the most dedicated, the most brilliant. He was not made for Dean Winchester.

 Dean could feel the rejection settle in his stomach, the inevitability of it. He wondered if he could ever breathe properly again without Cas's breath mixed with his own, his skin so close, hair tufting in the growing wind like a dark flame.

And then, of course, there was what he had said.

He had remembered.

"The anniversary is next week," Cas continued, still not moving away, and with each passing second Dean thought it was more of a miracle. Cas’s eyes were darker than Dean had ever seen, fixated on his lips although he hadn't said a word. "I was thinking about it. If you wanted to skip class that day, or whatever. If you wanted company. N-not that that company would be me, but I mean-"

"Cas," Dean choked, and without really thinking about it he leaned his forehead on that of the other boy’s, their eyes locking. "Of course it would be you."

"Dean-"

There was no mistaking it. Cas was looking at him with as much warmth as Dean felt, as much head-rushing confusion, and Cas's hand came up to wrap around Dean’s neck, charcoal fingers be damned.

Dean cut across him quickly and desperately. "I need you. Cas, I-"

Cas kissed him then, soft and hurriedly and just once, pulling back as if afraid to go on, but Dean’s heart was almost bursting out of his chest and he reconnected their lips greedily. Cas's hand tightened in the hair at the nape of Dean’s neck and he tugged him closer, deepening the kiss until Dean’s lips seared with it, until every tiny thread in him clung to Cas and burned.

It was Cas who pulled away. "Dean," he said, his lips swollen and pink.

"What?"

Cas looked as though someone had peeled him open. His face was more open and vulnerable than Dean had ever seen it, and there was something like fear in his eyes as he said, "I know you can’t promise anything. If this doesn’t- if we don’t- it doesn’t-"

"Cas, what is it?" Dean asked, worry beginning to taint the corners of his elation.

"You- your family."

"What about us, Cas?"

He did not answer right away, and instead looked anywhere but at Dean. The charcoal was gripped again in his fist. When Cas spoke, his voice was wrecked as he finally managed to mutter, "Don’t leave me."

Dean didn't know how to respond. Didn't know how to express the thing that he most wanted to say, which was simple: _I couldn’t, Cas._ He imagined himself saying it, but the words caught in his throat, and so the silence extended. He thought that was probably just as well- he knew he had a knack for appearing insincere in the moments when he most needed to be honest. Cas noticed, his eyes dimming and closing off the longer words went unsaid.

Internally frantic, Dean imagined himself scrambling after the happiness that he had just been given, the tiny flint of gold that reminded him that somehow on some plane his mother could be right, and that the angels could be watching out for him after all.

And then he realized.

Dean pulled out the wing-shaped stone from his pocket, feathered in stripes. He cleared his throat. Cas was looking at him quizzically, with the full head tilt- the full, adorable head tilt- which at least meant he hadn't given up all faith. "Dean? What is that?"

"I- uh. I found it in the gorge, before. I kept it for you. I mean, I wasn't going to give you it now, but um, here."

He handed it to him, spilled it from his palm into Cas's, who still looked confused.

"Um, the white stuff-"

"Calcite."

"Ok, fine, the calcite, whatever- it’s like angel wings, see? It’s all, uh, feathery." Dean looked anxiously at Cas to gauge his reaction, which was still impenetrable.

"Feathery." Cas repeated.

"I meant, it’s- Jesus, Cas, it’s like your name! Castiel!"

"How did you-"

"Dude, I looked it up."

"You've given me a rock."

Cas looked very puzzled.

"Yeah, no shit," said Dean, his face growing warm, embarrassment threatening to destroy the tiny ego he had entirely. "Look, it’s a nice rock, I just thought you’d like it."

"It _is_ a very nice rock."

"Thanks, I picked it myself," Dean said, growing irate, "Now seriously, listen to me, Cas. Ignore the rock for a second. Imagine the rock never happened. I regret the rock."

"Well, that’s honorable," Cas deadpanned.

Dean ignored him and continued. "Point is, I’d never have made it through this year alive without you, and I mean that. Don’t think for a second that I could leave you, that I could ever leave you now.’ Dean stopped to swallow, his dry mouth not used to baring his soul. ‘I’m speaking for my mom and Sammy too when I say this, but you’re family, you've been family since the start, and that’s how it’s staying. We care about you Cas. _I_ … care about you."

Cas's expression had softened considerably from the poker face he had worn throughout the discussion, and instead he looked mollified, almost sheepish.

Dean went on with a grin. "And it’ll take more than a kiss to change that, Cas. You don’t get away from the Winchesters that easy."

He kissed him again. "Two kisses don’t work, either."

And again. "Or three."

"What about four?" Cas smiled against his lips.

"Apparently not."

"Four hundred?""

"Well, I mean we’ll just have to try that out."

Cas, grinning, looked more luminous than the sun when he stood up, flicking the charcoal back and forth between his two fingers. "Maybe once we've got off this ridge, Dean, if you’re fit to move?"

Dean leapt up, his muscles only protesting slightly at the sudden movement. "Are you kidding? I will carry you down this mountain myself, Castiel."

"I would dash you in the brain with your own engagement rock first, Winchester."

"'Engagement rock?’"

Cas's face was perfectly composed but it was obvious he was amused. "It _was_ the obvious conclusion to jump to. I was disappointed in the lack of precious crystals at first but I suppose it can be forgiven."

"Will you marry me, Cas?" Dean joked, his pulse resounding strongly in his ears for such a throwaway question.

Cas threw his rucksack on without much effort and was quiet.

"Maybe once we’re off this ridge, Dean," he repeated, pulling at Dean’s hand, an honest smile thrown over his shoulder.

 

* * *

 

When they reached the gravel clearing containing the Impala, the evening light was shining dimly through colored clouds in muted pastels. It wasn't quite sunset, but the mountains absorbed all the remaining light in their hulking shadows, but while once- that morning, actually- Dean might have found resentment in that fact, he doubted he would ever be disappointed in the highlands again. Somehow, he was still awake and none too exhausted, something he attributed to the easier, slower descent, and most importantly, the revelation that it was possible that someone who wasn't forced to by familial bonds or loyalties could love him in return.

He grinned at the ground.

"What is it you call it?" Cas asked, elbowing him in the ribs as he passed to claim shotgun. "A ‘sap’?"

"Shut up, Cas."

"You’re a sap, Dean Winchester. Who would have believed it?"

Dean shook his head , still smiling, the moon rising at his back, but he didn't get into the car right away.

Instead, he turned to the cabin with its dripping moss and its damp boards and its lonely, keening windows. The broken glass sparkled now like premature snow. Now, rather than finding  it haunted or even sinister, Dean instead found it sad in this half-light, before the shadows stole in and claimed it fully. Before the night caused it to disappear, preternaturally, as if it had never existed.

Cas had turned on the engine for the heat and in the soft gold light that emanated from the interior Dean watched as he pulled the plaid blanket from the backseat and unraveled it around his neck and shoulders so that it wrapped around him like a tortilla. "Hurry up, Dean," he called. "It’s cold."

Dean laughed and turned away from the house, placing his dirty boots with the rucksacks into the trunk and padding softly into the drivers seat.

"I’m warning you now, Cas," he began as he turned on the engine.

"Oh dear."

"We’re moving on to Zeppelin lll."

Cas groaned and threw the blanket up to cover his face, ‘engagement rock’ balanced carefully on his knee.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! This is my first-ever fic - I wrote it in a caffeine-fuelled frenzy over midterms, partly because I'm a procrastinating nightmare, but mostly because I just couldn't get these two knuckleheads out of my brain. You know how it goes. Lovingly beta'd by my awesome flatmate Kessa, our_stories_blind_us ! Feedback would be wonderful if you want to chance it :) loves xxx


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